ABOUT

The Berlin’s district of Neukölln houses more migrants than natives. For many years, the social problems in this district have been suppressed and concealed. However, the riots in the suburbs of Paris in 2005 have also drawn attention to troubled neighborhoods in Berlin such as Neukölln in the time of this creation. After her first experience of working with young amateurs in “Scratch Neukölln” (2003) in HELL ON EARTH Constanza Macras worked again with teenagers from Neukölln.

How do adolescent teenagers with an immigrant background cope with the multilayered? In HELL ON EARTH these teenagers share their live experiences with the audience, not from a children’s perspective, but rather from a young adult’s point of view: their hopes and troubles in becoming adults, the daily discrimination their exposed to and their wish of integration as well as the problems related with that same wish. Of particular interest in this piece was gender identity, one of the main issues of preadulthood.

PRESS REVIEWS

“Constanza Macras and Dorky Park knock the socks off audiences with “Hell on Earth”. (…) This astonishingly exhilarating work, like the Korean production “Jump” with brains and balls, kaleidoscopically plays on all the scary undersides of hormonal change and dreams. Often, it is more like a peek into how Hieronymus Bosch might have painted hell if he’d been living today. It’s surreal, playful, serious and seriously bizarre, and it holds your focus tight for 90 minutes.” - Robyn Sassen, artslink.co.za, South Africa, March 2009

“The work is loud, shrill, fast, and like a comic strip.” - Michaela Schlagenwerth, Berliner Zeitung, April 2008

“Constanza Macras’ dance piece “Hell on Earth” at HAU Berlin has many scenes where all imaginable stereotypes on migrants and their tough ideas about gender roles are being exposed, stressed and altered. This happens in such a relaxed way, devoid of any pedagogic convulsions, that all that makes life between the cultures and on the lower fringe of society so difficult, turns into happily exploited material for acting. The disassembly of stereotypes also works beyond travesty, for example when a small girl – whose parents have emigrated from the Lebanon to Berlin ages ago – is very confident about combining determined feminism with the headscarf that she wears with conviction.” - Peter Laudenbach, Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 2008

“Macras demonstrates that whoever works with youth from immigrant families doesn’t have to surrender her grit. She asks about body and gender, she explores how concepts of femininity and masculinity relate. This is often polemic and bold – gender politics onstage. The young actors reproduce inane stereotypes, only to confront them in good humor. Horror and hormones, conformity and rebellion. “Hell on Earth” is impressive for its rapid dancers and abrasively funny statements. Macras has achieved the perfect union between empathy and enlightenment. And the young actors are head of their class!” - Sandra Luzina, Der Tagesspiegel, April 2008